PAULSBORO — With the sun shining bright and the temperature up past 65, nothing was keeping Andy Gattuso indoors Tuesday afternoon, not even a shelter-in-place order requesting all of the borough’s residents stay in their homes due to elevated levels of vinyl chloride being detected in the air.

Gattuso was in his Beacon Avenue driveway, just two blocks from the town’s evacuation zone, washing his car as a Department of Environmental Protection truck and police cars — with lights constantly flashing — patrolled his neighborhood and those around him.

Evacuations have been mandatory since Friday when a freight train, headed south from Camden, derailed on the Jefferson Street Bridge over Mantua Creek sending four tankers into the water and stranding a fifth on the tracks.

Four of the cars contained vinyl chloride, a colorless, flammable gas used in making PVC plastics. One of those cars sustained a gash in the accident, sending thousands of pounds of the carcinogenic chemical into the atmosphere.

“It’s a beautiful day. I’m not staying inside,” Gattuso said. “Why should I worry? It’s a dangerous chemical? I hope nothing happens. But I want to enjoy the sunshine today.”

While a section of town was ordered to evacuate, the rest of the borough has been under an on-again, off-again shelter-in-place order, meaning residents were asked to stay inside with their windows and doors shut since Friday morning.

They weren’t sure to be panicked or calm, stay in or leave town. To worry about the air, or, like Gattuso, enjoy the weather.

A new order was issued Tuesday afternoon that expanded the evacuation area and extended the time for evacuations until at least Sunday, while lifting the shelter-in-place order for the rest of the borough.

“I understand the enormous inconvenience this incident has placed on the community and we are committed to working swiftly to get people back to their homes as quickly as possible,” Capt. Kathy Moore from the U.S. Coast Guard said at a press conference Tuesday. “The shelter-in-place order will transition into an expanded evacuation that will encompass approximately an additional 100 homes. It is a precautionary measure. But it also is designed to let the rest of the city of Paulsboro return to normal.”

The new evacuation zone runs from Broad Street to 7th Avenue and Mantua Creek to Spruce Street.

A dive team was sent out Tuesday morning to examine all parts that are under water — which includes part of the damaged tanker and an entire tanker filled with ethanol — which they found no issues with.

As cleanup continues, the Department of the Environmental Protection has been consistently monitoring the levels of vinyl chloride in the air, and while the majority of the town has measured acceptable levels, the evacuation zone has had sporadic high levels recorded.

The threshold for action determined by the unified command — which includes the Coast Guard, the DEP, local police and fire departments and the National Transportation Safety Board — is one part per million. In the “hot zone” measurements had reached as high as five parts per million Tuesday.

“The DEP supports this decision of the unified command,” Larry Hanja, a spokesperson for the DEP said. “We are being very conservative in order to ensure the public health.”

Evacuees were told to gather enough belongings for at least a week and report to Conrail’s assistance center at St. Michael’s Mutual Club in neighboring Greenwich Township, where they can get assistance from the railroad company in attaining vouchers for hotels, food, laundry service and any other expenses they may have in this disruption.

“I realize lives have been disrupted. Anyway we can minimize that disruption we will,” said Rob Fender, director of claims on behalf on Conrail. “Any out-of-pocket expenses.”

Meanwhile, remaining residents are dealing with the ever-changing orders the best they can. Some are confused, some are hunkering down and some are ignoring orders and walking about town. But all seem to share one belief: It was a matter of time until something like this happened in the small industrial town.

“We are in a little island of potential disasters,” Raymond Gezzi said. “I thought it would be the refinery or the asphalt plant. It’s tough in a little town like this.”

Evacuations are continuing as long as the Coast Guard works to remove the remaining 600 to 800 gallons of product from the breached tanker car.

Due to its precarious position in the water, the remaining vinyl chloride is stuck in a corner of the vertically turned car. The Coast Guard is planning to spray a liquid into the hull of the tank that will dissolve the chemical, then use a pump to remove the solution while minimizing its vapors as much as possible.

“The problem is that the underlying, most complex part of this incident is that we have a rail derailment including hazardous chemicals over a waterway and a bridge,” Moore said. “It’s a toxic and unpredictable chemical. It’s not going very fast. But understand these operations are very complex. There are obstructions in the way of accessing the remaining 600 to 800 gallons of product.”

Congressman Rob Andrews, D-1 of Haddon Heights, however, believes that the Coast Guard and Conrail need to work faster to get this project completed and people back in their homes.

“I’m most concerned the Coast Guard is taking so long to get this cleaned up,” he said. “I can understand the exasperation of the people who are evacuated. I don’t want them to do it a second quicker than it’s safe, but I want to make sure it’s being done as quickly as possible.

While the Coast Guard continues cleanup, NTSB inspectors are awaiting access the crash scene and reviewing records trying to find the cause of the accident. The agency is looking into 23 “trouble tickets” written regarding problems with the bridge in the last year. Almost half of those were reported between Oct. 27 and Nov. 29. Some of the problems were minor, such as debris on tracks and burned-out lights, but at least two involved problems with the signals or alignment.